


everything for you but disappointment

by inlovewithnight



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 12:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Gabe's self-described lonely/bored glamour shots to Twitter from his Montreal hotel room in August 2012.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything for you but disappointment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romanticalgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/gifts).



As soon as Gabe picks up, Pete laughs. "If you're so lonely and bored, why doesn't your band entertain you?"

"Why don't you entertain me?" Gabe rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Pete's voice over the phone is nice, but not as good as in person.

"Because I'm still in a cab. A Canadian cab."

Gabe raises an eyebrow at his phone. "Are Canadian cabs somehow fundamentally different from American cabs?"

"Not fundamentally. Aesthetically, though."

"Really. Tell me more."

Pete's silent for a moment. "I don't have anything else to say about cabs."

"Tell me what you're going to do when you get here."

Pete laughs softly. "I will not talk dirty to you from a cab. No. I draw the line."

"You suck at this."

"Be patient." Pete falls quiet again and Gabe closes his eyes, listening to him breathe. "Last-minute jaunts across the country. Is this a step?"

Gabe closes his eyes tighter. These questions are always loaded guns. "Only if you want it to be."

"What if I don't know?"

"Then we table the question."

"That doesn't even mean anything."

Gabe turns onto his stomach and presses his face against his arm. "Means we worry about it later."

"I'll be there soon." Pete hangs up and Gabe bites his lip, making himself breathe slow and steady, exhaling the nervous clench from his stomach and inhaling serenity from the universe.

It doesn't work for shit, so he opens Instagram and reads the comments kids have been leaving on his glamour shots from the hotel bed. They're having fun out there, laughing at him. That's something.

**

Pete calls him from the lobby in a tizzy because Gabe gave the wrong alias to the front desk. Gabe hangs up on him and calls the desk from his room phone. "Is he a short man with sad eyes and tight jeans?" he asks, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

"Sweatpants," the clerk tells him, and Gabe can just picture how he must be eyeing Pete right now while Pete seethes in frustration. "Dark hair. Ugly jacket."

"That's my friend. Give him a key and send him up, please." Gabe hangs up and lies back again, kicking his feet slowly in midair. Pete's going to come through the door yelling. Gabe doesn't even know why he's being a dick about this.

(He does: he's lonely, and he's bored. That's enough in and of itself. It's not as if Pete doesn't get the same way when their roles are reversed. This is who they are.)

The door opens and closes and Gabe waits, staring at the ceiling and bracing himself for shouting. It doesn't come, and he rolls his eyes left and right, trying to spot the sneak attack that must be coming.

Still nothing, though, and after a few long, quiet moments, he sits up. "Pete?"

Pete's sitting in one of the under-stuffed armchairs, staring at him. "You looked good like that."

"Like what?"

"Lying on the bed."

Gabe frowns at him. "I wasn't even doing anything. I was expecting you to come in all pissed off."

Pete shrugs. "I just got off a really long flight. And the desk guy gave me a cookie with my key. And you looked good like that."

"You're chilling out in your old age." Lonely. Bored. Being a dick. Pete is _right here_ , Gabe should probably drop all of that already.

To his surprise, Pete laughs. "I really am." He kicks his feet in slow arcs, reminding Gabe of himself a few minutes earlier. "I missed you."

"I missed you too. You should come over here."

"Not yet. I want to look at you a little more."

Gabe's...uncomfortable with that, more so than makes any sense. People look at him all the time. He's a camera whore, he's a frontman, he's got a goddamn Facebook now and God knows that's a glorified photo service. He leans back on his elbows and stares at Pete, meeting his gaze with as much challenge as he can manage. Pete doesn't look challenging. Pete looks tired, and a little bit guarded. His shutters are closed and a big KEEP OUT sign is on the door.

Gabe might be losing his grip on metaphor.

The desk clerk was right; Pete's jacket is ugly. And it isn't meant to be worn with sweatpants. Gabe wonders what Pete's wearing under it, if it's just a soft t-shirt against his skin or if he's armoring himself in layers and layers like he does when he doesn't want the world to touch him. 

"Okay," Pete says finally. "I guess that's enough looking." He stands up and toes off his shoes, ugly purple Supras that don't go with the jacket, either. Gabe kind of wants a pair, even though he's over the whole purple thing. Over it, buried it, moved on. Still. He's tempted by those shoes.

Pete takes the jacket off next, and Gabe exhales a little more sharply than he intended when he sees that he's only got one t-shirt on underneath. It's an old Cobra t-shirt, too, from their first tour. Pete must have found that at the very, very back of his closet, and he wouldn't have dug it out without a reason. Maybe they're taking steps after all.

The sweatpants go, and then Pete walks over to the bed and leans in, breathing against Gabe's mouth, not quite kissing him. His nose bumps against Gabe's. "Sorry."

"It's okay." Gabe closes the small distance and kisses him, slow and soft. "I'm glad you came."

"You asked me to." Pete boosts himself onto the bed, straddling Gabe's waist. "I try not to let you down too often."

"You've never let me down."

"Don't jinx it." Another kiss, longer and deeper this time. "God, don't jinx this."

"I don't believe in jinxes." Gabe wraps his arms around Pete and pulls him down against him, taking Pete's weight against his chest. "Talk to me?"

Pete's brow furrows. "I don't want to talk." He rubs his cheek against Gabe's shoulder, staring past him at the bedsheets. "I want...you. I want to touch you."

"You can touch me however you want." Gabe keeps his voice low and warm, safe, somewhere in the neighborhood of inviting. Pete scares easily, and Gabe doesn't want to push him, but on the other hand...he wants. Simple as that.

"I want to take steps." Pete presses an awkward kiss to Gabe's collarbone. "A step. One step."

"What kind of step?"

"Big step." Pete licks his lips and sits up again, shaking off Gabe's arms. "Can I?"

"You haven't told me what you mean yet," Gabe points out, lying back and stretching his arms over his head. "But like I said, you can do whatever you want."

Pete sighs in soft frustration and shifts back, moving to sit on Gabe's thighs. It hurts a little, and Gabe's about to ask him to move when Pete place his hand on Gabe's dick, palm curved to the shape of it through Gabe's boxer-briefs. 

"Can I?" Pete says again, looking up at Gabe through the cross-hatch of his bangs. His eyes are wide and dark and vulnerable, nowhere close to fearless but really fucking brave. Gabe's always thought that Pete is the bravest guy he knows. 

"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat and pressing his fingers down into the blankets to keep himself steady. "Yeah, go ahead. Anything you want."

Pete smiles, brittle and sharp around the edges but real. He rubs his hand against Gabe slowly, staring down at the heather-gray fabric like he can read some kind of truth in the threads, or maybe in how Gabe's body responds underneath them. His cock twitches, stirring to sleepy attention at Pete's touch. Gabe lets go of a slow breath through clenched teeth. 

"It's so weird," Pete says softly, more to himself than to Gabe. "If you get a girl going, she gets all wet. Guys just...or maybe it does make sense, maybe it's like, the same liquid girls have, but it's running somewhere else. Like filling up a balloon." 

Gabe blinks. "I cannot think of anything less sexy than that, Pete."

"I know, right? I don't know what's wrong with me."

"You're overthinking it, maybe?"

"I don't know how to stop." Pete drags his thumb down to the head of Gabe's dick, visible through the fabric now where it's pressing up against it. Pete traces the ridge and rubs the fabric against the wet place at the tip. "But I'm trying."

"You could kiss me." Pete glances up at him, his face still guarded, his eyes assessing. Gabe meets his gaze steadily and waits him out. "I'd like it if you did."

Pete nods and leans up, shifting his hand back to rubbing along the shaft and pressing his mouth to Gabe's. Gabe closes his eyes and tries to draw the kiss out, keeping himself back a little, coaxing Pete to move into him. He'll spend all night drawing Pete out, if that's what it takes. Coming is secondary to keeping Pete here in his head as well as his body.

"You're really big," Pete mutters against his mouth, taking a sharp breath. "I mean...fuck, you're just really big."

"Why do you think I used to whip it out all the time?"

"Ha." Pete shakes his head and kisses him again, dragging his hand up far enough to catch the elastic of Gabe's underwear and start tugging it down. He slips his thumb around Gabe's dick and shakes it free with a lot less care and reverence than Gabe cares for, but it feels fucking good, too. Pete's touching him. Pete's going to look at his dick, and keep touching his dick, and neither one of them is fucking anything up yet. That's not nothing. 

Pete lets go of him long enough to spit in his hand, then starts stroking Gabe again, resting his forehead against Gabe's shoulder while he does. Gabe can feel Pete's breath, warm and damp through his t-shirt, and see how his shoulder hitches with each stroke. He wishes Pete would look at him, but he gets it, he does; sometimes you have to hide your eyes, keep your secrets locked safe away in your bones and skin. Gabe won't ever argue with Pete's right to do that. He'll just wish for when Pete feels good enough to look up.

"I've been thinking about sucking on you," Pete says, barely above a whisper, the words caught between his jaw and Gabe's body. "I think about it a lot. While I brush my teeth and while I'm waiting at Starbucks or--or whatever. I think about what it would be like to blow you."

Gabe's hips arch up despite himself and he digs his fingers harder into the bedding. Fuck. Fuck. "You do?"

"All the time. I, like. I suck on my fingers. I press my fingers against the back of my tongue and just--I just pretend." Pete rubs his thumb in circles over the head of Gabe's cock, a little too hard, and Gabe closes his eyes, forcing a sharp breath out through his nose. "I don't know what you taste like. But I think about it."

"Just taste like skin," Gabe manages to say, letting his head fall back on the bed again. "Nothing special."

"You are special." Pete's mouth slides against Gabe's neck, along the edge of his t-shirt, the contact breaking off as he reaches the cotton and then resuming as he moves back again, hot wet soft. "Not like I do this with anybody else. You must be special."

"You want me." Three stupid little words they've thrown back and forth a hundred ways, as statement and question and every kind of inflection. The answer always comes back _yes yes yes but._

"I do." Pete sighs the words, his breath hot against the wet streak on Gabe's neck. "I do want you."

"God, Pete."

"I don't know how to _have_ you. But I want you. Is that close enough?"

It has to be. But it is, too. It is. "Yeah. Yes. Can you--a little tighter. Please. Fuck, yes. Like that."

Pete shifts over him and Gabe feels Pete's dick bump against his hip, just a touch before Pete moves away again. Hard and heavy inside Pete's underwear. Gabe's going to touch him next, going to curve his fingers around him and make Pete shake and gasp, make him see stars. This is how they move through this; Pete takes a step and Gabe takes a larger one to speed up meeting him halfway. Maybe it's not the right way to do it. Neither of them knows; they've never done this before, and there's no guidebook for building love out of other pieces also named love. The world likes to pretend that nobody has ever done this before.

Gabe's breath stutters and his hips jerk and he comes, hot and wet against his own skin and Pete's hand. Pete sits up and Gabe looks at him, blinking sweat from his eyes and licking his lips. Pete rubs his thumb aross his palm and smiles, just a little, a flash of white teeth like sun cracking the clouds and hiding its face again. 

"I like how you feel on me," Pete says, meeting his eyes. "Is that gross?"

"A little. But it's okay." 

"Sex is so fucking messy." Pete wipes his hand on the sheets and tugs Gabe's underwear the rest of the way off, wiping him clean with them and tossing them to the floor. "People are messy."

"Blood and guts and sweat and tears."

"And jizz." Pete smirks and shakes his head. "Jizz all over the place."

Gabe holds his arms out and Pete crawls up to kiss him, allowing himself to be held. His dick's still pressing out through his underwear, hard and eager, and he settles so it presses against the hollow where Gabe's hip meets his torso. "Can I just rub off?" Pete asks against Gabe's jaw, blinking his eyes rapidly. Gabe can see his lashes fluttering, at the edge of his vision. "Is that cool?"

"Take your underwear off."

"Okay." Not the big step Gabe planned on then, but a step anyway. Two small steps, one from each direction. The middle gets closer every day.

Pete squirms out of his briefs and tosses them away, then settles against Gabe again, gasping a little as his dick meets Gabe's skin. "You're warm."

"Yeah." Gabe kisses his eyebrow. "Hot-blooded."

"Don't you dare sing."

"I got a fever of a hundred and three..." Gabe chants it more than sings it, compromising for his throat, and Pete shakes his head, laughing breathlessly while he grinds down against Gabe. Gabe wraps his arms around him again, keeping him close and giving him extra pressure to push back against for friction. He watches Pete's face and imagines what his dick must look like, hot and hard and dark-flushed.

Pete comes with a sharp little groan, his eyes closed tight, and Gabe kisses his forehead, breathing in the scent of his skin and hair. "Love you, dude," he says softly, feeling Pete's heart pounding against his own. "I really do."

"Love you too." Pete stays still for a moment, then gently pushes back, looking around for something to clean up with. Gabe tugs his t-shirt off and uses that on both of them, then pulls Pete close again. Pete kisses his jaw and his shoulder and closes his eyes.

"Tired?" Gabe asks.

"Exhausted."

"How long are you staying?" It's a question they both have to navigate around carefully; it carries a lot more old scars and sharp stings than either of them suspects, no matter how many times they run into it.

"Til tomorrow night. I'll get a cab to the airport while you're at your thing." Pete rests his head against Gabe and takes a deep breath. "But I'm here right now."

"I'm glad." Gabe shifts onto his back, pulling Pete with him so Pete's lying on top, his chest to Gabe's. They can breathe together, and listen to the echo of each other's heart in the quiet room. 

"Good steps tonight," Pete murmurs, the corner of his mouth turning up just a little. "Do we get a prize for that?"

"Sure we do." Gabe runs his hands up and down Pete's back, counting the bumps in his spine. "We get to wake up together in the morning."

Pete laughs and shakes his head. "Corny, duder."

"Whatever. You liked it."

Pete rolls his eyes and falls quiet for a moment, rubbing his hand along Gabe's arms. "You know I'm trying, right? It's taking me forever. All these steps. But I am trying."

"I know you are, Pete."

"I'm trying as hard as I can."

"I know." Gabe catches Pete's hand and holds on tight. "That's why I don't mind waiting."


End file.
